BOOK'REVIEWS

Mark K. Bauman, : The Conservative as Idealist. Metuchen, New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1981.278 pp. $16.00.

The name Warren Akin Candler (1857-1941) symbolizes for many the epitome of die-hard Southern Methodism and unreco~nstructed Southernism, the image of someone whose values and attributes were frozen in a pattern of the past and who was una-hIe to make a positive response to cultural, economic, and political changes. Mark K. Bauman, the author of this study, acknowledges that Candler was"a conservative, a racist, ... and elitist," one who remained outside the reform inspirations of Populism, Progressivism, and the Social Gospel (p. 180). Although Candler seemed to protest against nearly every innovation of his time from theological liberalism to labor unions, intercollegiate athletics, and woman suffrage, his life was not devoted entirely to attempts to 'hold back the modern age. ' Bauman explains that Candler was a much more complex person than he is usually portrayed. As a prominent spokesman for Southern Methodism from the 1880s, he championed education for Negroes and was one of the founders of ; a defender of theological or­ thodoxy, he founded and employed liberal scholars from Harvard, the University of Chicago, and elsewhere for the faculty of its School of Theology. He might n"bt have been inspired by the social movement but he was one of the founders of the Methodist Hospital in ; he supported membership in the League of Nations, refused to participate in the anti-evolution crusade, and was opposed tovaudevillism in religion as exemplified by Billy Sunday. Although this is not a full scale life and times treatment of pne of the most colorful and controversial bishops of the Methodist Chillch, the author, it seems, has fairly portrayed his subject. Candler's heritage is' traced from Quaker forebears who came to Virginia in 1735 and migrated to shortly after the American Revolution. From their arrival in Georgia members of the family were active in politics, education, and farming. Warren Candler was educated at Emory College in Oxford, Georgia, where during his senior year he decided to enter the ministry. He was a protege of and a close friend of Atticus G. Haygood, and his emergence to prominence in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South was rather rapid. He served several pastorates in Georgia, L I was assistant editor of the Nashville Christian Advocate, president of . ; Emory College, and in 1898 at age forty was elected bishop.

105 106 METHODIST HISTORY

Candler's activities as bishop are noted but the focus of the author's attention is on the thought and attitudes of Candler and the forces which made him the type of person he was. Even though this volume is not a psychobiography, the author is not unaware of the approach and jargon of psychohistory and occasionally its influence is reflected in the narrative. The principal source for this study is the Candler Papers (over 30,000 items) at Emory University and related papers found in a variety of depositories. It is clearly written and well documented and is a worthy _ recipient of the Jesse Lee Prize awarded by the General Commission on Archives and History of The United Methodist Church. - W. Harrison Daniel University of Richmond

Anne C. Loveland, Southern Evangelicals and the Social Order, 1800­ 1860. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980. 293 pp. $30.00.

. Although the Old South has been an area of scholarly investigation for nearly a century, it remains one of the least understood aspects of our national history. Many factors contribute to this condition, but perhaps the most significant one has been and is the everlasting desire and attempt of many to find a "distinctive" southern ethos or culture. Southern Evangelicals and the Social Order, despite the author's final paragraph, does not fall completely in this category, and thereby it contributes to understanding. Ms. Loveland, who is a professor of history at Louisiana State University, has prepared a well written and informative monograph. Her focus of interest is not so much southern religion as it is the southern clergyman and his role and activities in antebellum society. The clergymen whom Loveland has studied represent the Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian denominations. Among the prominent Methodists who receive attention are James o. Andrew, William Capers, and William Winans. It is noted that southern clergymen espoused practically the same theology, values, and attitudes regardless of their denominational af­ filiation. They all expounded the sovereignty of God and the sinfulness of man and proclaimed the necessity of a conversion experience for salvation. Southern evangelicals were active in temperance organizations, Bible, tract, and Sunday school societies, sought to improve conditions for the deaf, insane, and blind, agitated for prison and criminal reforms and for public education. In these activities southern clergymen were reflecting the mainstream of American Protestantism and the spirit of reform prevalent throughout the nation at the time rather than I BOOK REVIEWS 107 l ~ manifesting regional traits or characteristics. I Southern evangelicals' defense of the peculiar institution was a I' regional aberration, and the author devotes slightly more than one fourth of her study to slavery and the efforts of churchmen to minister to the spiritual welfare of blacks. All of the denominations formed programs of plantation missions; the Methodists devoted more time, energy, per­ sonnel, and resources to this activity than any other church and were the most successful in making converts among the slaves. The author seems less critical of Southern evangelicals in her discussion of slavery than H. Shelton Smith in his 1972 publication, In His Image But. ... Although this is a valuable study, I have, one or two minor caveats. In discussing the conversion experiences of Daniel Witt and Jeremiah B. Jeter, prominent Baptist clergymen, Loveland is a bit confused. She places these men (pp. 80-81) in the Northern Neck of Virginia. Both were natives of Bedford County and their conversions occurred in that county - several hundred miles west of the "Neck". Nearly fifty years ago Gunion Griffis Johnson, in her Ante-Bellum North Carolina, documented (p. 169) the existence of temperance societies in that state several years prior to 1826, the date given by Loveland for the formation of the first temperance society in the South (p. 130). This volume is based upon extensive research in the primary sources, and the publisher is to he complimented for placing the footnotes at the bottom of the page rather than relegating them to the end of the book. The reviewer shares the author's hope that this study will illustrate to the reader that southern evangelicalism - as well as other aspects of southern history - are more comple~ and different than has sometimes been assumed. - w. Harrison Daniel University of Richmond

\